Felix and Fanny

[alzado]

Just spent part of the afternoon increasing my knowledge of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn. 

One thing I found surprising -- the brother and sister were very close -- both died in 1847, one in May and the other in November.  Felix was still grieving for his sister when he succombed to the same illness that killed her -- a series of severe strokes. 

At the cathedral yesterday morning, the organist played a movement from Mendelssohn's Sonata in A Major (Op. 65, No. 3).  Played it as a postludium.   It was very powerful -- really shook the rafters.  Going by my limited knowledge of Mendelssohn (Italian Symphony, Scottish Symphony, Spinning Song, etc. ) I expected elegance but not so much power. 

Fanny Mendelssohn, the sister, was also a composer but her output was suppressed by her family.  Much of what she wrote was never published at the request of her brother and father.  Late in life after her marriage she seemed to rebel, and published some of her work in spite of considerable disfavor from the family's males.

Fanny was a well to do and well educated woman.  She organized a salon where she performed some of her piano work privately for a circle of friends.  Her salon also introduced artists and musicians to her circle of elegant friends.  Thus, cultural sexism essentially drove her creative impulses "underground."

Here is another womanly figure a lot like Christina Rossetti in England.  A talented and brilliant woman overshadowed by a brilliant brother and her own work suppressed by cultural sexism.  This seems to be the impression given in the fine article on Fanny in the Grove New Encyclopedia of Music.  According to Grove, some limited amount of Fanny's output is available, but far more is privately held and has not been released for publication. 

Anyone really like piano pieces by either Felix or fanny Mendelssohn?
Which ones?

Does anyone play Meldelssohn's work on the organ?

Is anyone familiar with anything by Fanny Mendelssohn?

[lisztisforkids]

Mendelsohn is one of the most popular piano composers. I suggest you look at his Songs without words, and Variations, as a starter with him

I really enjoy his Hebrides overture.. Thats power.

[pianistimo]

felix's g minor piano concerto is pretty powerful, too!  interesting what you say about fanny.  will look into more info on the net.  of course, if most of her work is held privately, we'll have to wait until it's published. 

cecil chaminade wrote some good stuff.  she's one of my favorite published female composers.  there's not as many women, admittedly, but thanks for sharing the reasons.  i believe clara schumann was a capable composer, too, and wrote pc cadenzas and things like also.  in fact, if i remember right, brahms wrote one for her and she wasn't completely satisfied so she wrote of of her own or modified it. usually composers have a definate idea in their heads of what they want for certain situations and just write it.

[presto agitato]

Read this:


Many people witnessed Mendelssohn's piano playing and, as Donald Mintz has pointed out, there is a remarkable consensus among the reports of it. Mendelssohn's playing possessed "enormous dexterity, great accuracy, a feeling of fire, and passionate involvement." Apart from his own music, Mendelssohn's public repertory was relatively limited, but within those pieces he was a quite insightful and accomplished interpreter. He seems always to have been able to rouse audiences to a frenzy through his playing, but less because of his virtuosity as such than because his playing brought audiences face to face with the music he played.

One of the features of Mendelssohn's public performances as a pianist involved his abilities as an improviser. This was particularly noted in England late in his life when during a rehearsal he improvised three different cadenzas for the first movement of Beethoven's Fourth Concerto, and then played yet a different one at the concert. Unlike many improvised cadenzas of that time, Mendelssohn's were firmly based on the motivic content of the movement.

Although Mendelssohn's playing and compositional style were relatively conservative, there exists one recollection that shows him capable of more advanced feats. Once when Liszt played a Hungarian melody and four increasingly dazzling variations on it for an assembly that included Mendelssohn, Liszt then demanded that Mendelssohn play something as well. After resisting for a while on the grounds that he no longer played much, Mendelssohn finally agreed on condition that Liszt would not be angry with him for what he was about to do-whereupon he sat down and played Liszt's melody with variations that he had just heard for the first time, note for note! Liszt was too impressed to be angry, even though in achieving his feat Mendelssohn had had to imitate some of Liszt's showman-like "raptures."

The first great piano work by Mendelssohn was his Andante and Rondo capriccioso, op. 14. Its opening section is filled with magical intimacy of expression, while the rest of the piece is a virtuoso romp of elfin lightness that is quite difficult to play. Edvard Grieg, who studied at the Leipzig Conservatory of Music about twenty years after Mendelssohn founded it, tells the story of a professor of piano there. Because of Mendelssohn's role in the history of the conservatory, it was customary for students to study his works faithfully, but this Rondo was beyond the grasp of many of them. When they would ask this professor for a demonstration of how one could make one's way through the piece, the man (named Wenzel) would play through the Andante in a most expressive manner, get to the Rondo, and say "Et cetera."

This story gets to the core of one of the challenges in playing Mendelssohn's music. So much of it goes at an extremely rapid rate and the performer must learn to play many notes quickly and lightly, with emphasis on momentum rather than expressive inflection. This is unlike the style of performance demanded by much other music, however, and very unlike the kind of style practiced in the twentieth century, which prefers tangibility to evanescence. Nevertheless, many of Mendelssohn's fast works make better sense at tempos that are faster and lighter than most performers are prepared to achieve. Could it be that this discrepancy between performance style and Mendelssohn's music is one of the reasons Mendelssohn seems difficult to revive in our day?

I really love Mendelssohn´s music. I also like the way he "avoided" "religious stuff".  He wasnt an ortodox jew (like Alkan), so he wasnt chained to any faith or belief and because of that, he probably wrote the best music of 19th century IMO.

Schumann called Mendelssohn the Mozart of the nineteenth century. "I look upon Mendelssohn," he said, "as the first musician of his time, and pay him the homage due to a master."

[pianistimo]

very good stuff!  enjoyed the improvisation story - and believe he wasn't out to impress - but just to play the music.  i do think, however, he had deep religious beliefs and expressed them by promoting the works of bach.  for instance, bach's 'passion according to st. matthew' had not been performed in over 80 years - so mendelssohn had a performance put on of the work.  he is partly responsible for developing the 'bach society' and also created many songs and works such as 'elijah' oratorio based on biblical scenareos.  didn't he compose 'st. paul' oratorio,too?  it's been a while since i've listened to some of the music - but it seems much like handel in places.  maybe what you mean - about his jewishness is that maybe he was a jewish christian.  esp. if he was promoting the passion.  interesting that fanny and felix both died in the same year.

[alzado]

I want to compliment and thank the three contributors, who just illustrate the expertise and insight that is available on this forum.

A couple of further comments -- it is difficult to cover anything that the excellent posts have not covered.

Mendelssohn followed Beethoven in time, but rather than launching into gusty romanticism he was wedded to the earlier classical tradition, and loved techniques such as counterpoint.  This actually may have diminished somewhat his ultimate status, since his contemporaries were moving toward romanticism while he lingered still in the classical mode.  (I mean, he was a bit out of jibe with what historians expected -- this can sometimes affect the judgment of a composer's ultimate status, albeit somewhat unfairly.)

According to Grove, Felix and Fanny were both baptized Lutherans when quite young, but went on to live lives bonded to Jewish religious and cultural values.  This is far from unprecedented -- persons in some cultures had to "give the nod" to Christianity to avoid being discriminated against in matters of business, etc.  (Ditto for Spain.)  Most seem to believe the Mendelssohns continued to take comfort and pride in being Jewish.

As for Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann, it is written in Grove that on one occasion at her salon Fanny played one of Felix's concertos all the way through.  This is the only record of her playing a large, expansive work, but she was capable of it.  Most of her own compositions were "leider" as well as shorter piano "pieces."   Clara, of course, was a performing concert pianist.  A list of Fanny's known works is found in Grove.

Even though most of her compositions are still privately held and not published at this time, I believe I remember reading that at least one sheet music book of selections from her compositions has been published in a modern edition for today's pianists and students.  I will see if I can find this on the internet.

[pianistimo]

what mother in her right mind would name her daughter 'fanny?'  oh well.  yes. it would be interesting to see what she composed.  we often have a sort of bias towards shorter works, but sometimes they are enchanting and can be transcribed if for voice/piano.

[bernhard]

Have a look here for biography and a few midifiles of her compositions (some are very beautiful).

https://www.musicforpianos.com/fannyhensel.htm
(Piano music of Fanny Mendelssohn, with midifiles and links to CDs and sheet music)



Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[pianistimo]

that's a good bio.  unfortunately my earphones are again problematic.  have to wait for them to get working again.  thanks for the midi files to listen to.